


Panicking

by missbeizy



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:29:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbeizy/pseuds/missbeizy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Shower," Elijah answers, balancing a cigarette, four empty beer bottles, and one of Dom's cuffs in his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Panicking

"Shit!"

That pretty much sums it up. That and "we're fucked." 

Elijah trips over Dom and knocks Orlando into a lamp, eliciting snarled profanity from both men.

"Fuck." Dom elbows Elijah and uses the towel hanging around Orlando's neck as leverage to get himself vertical and back on track. "I told you all this was a bad idea."

"Since when are you Mister Clock Watch? We just lost track of--"

"--time! Is of the essence! When you are employed!" Dom says, punctuating each phrase with wild grabs for shoes and articles of clothing. "Where's Billy got to?"

"Shower," Elijah answers, balancing a cigarette, four empty beer bottles, and one of Dom's cuffs in his hands.

Dom leans over and snatches the cuff and mutters something about a monkey. "Naturally. Just when I need to use it m'self."

"Can't it wait, man?" Orlando asks, frantically stuffing a duffel bag.

Dom looks down at his sand-covered body and off-kilter swimming trunks. "Well of course, my pretty elf. I'll just strut into Feet like this. I'm sure they have, oh, hoses lying about that will be put to prompt use upon my person." When Orlando just squints at him, Dom throws up his hands. "Look, we're going to be late as it is, so we might as well show up ready to go."

And in retrospect, deciding to go for a swim at three in the morning and not bring any form of a watch? Not at all intelligent. So Dom feels stupid enough as it is.

He checks the time on hallway clock on his way to the bathroom. The light's on inside and he stops just short of knocking as Billy's low singing floats through the door. He smiles and then brings his fingers down.

"Oi, Bills. This isn't exactly the time for a long soak, you realize. We've got to be back in Wellington in about an hour ago. And I have to use the shower."

No answer. Dom shifts on his feet and starts to call again when the door suddenly opens, forcing him to step back. Billy struts forward in front a cloud of steam, towel slung loosely around his small hips, water trickling and catching on the ridges of his collarbone. 

"Pushy little bugger, aren't you?" Billy comments breezily, shifting past Dom at a very calm pace. Dom's jaw tightens and he watches Billy disappear down the hall.

Sometimes Dom hates Billy for not panicking along with him like any best mate should.

*

The little label on the side of the bottle takes only a few moments to read. The stink of the stuff inside, however, gives Dom a bit more trouble. His hay fever--bumped up now to just three spots below 'burnt alive in fiery inferno of death' on his list of Things That Would Be Quite Unpleasant--along with the wool of his costume has given him a bit of a rash on his shoulders and neck. Beyond the itchy burn, the red bumps don't do much for his character's on-screen image.

In the makeup trailer he gets lotion and gauze wherever his costume covers and makeup where it doesn't, but at home he has to mind it and he's not very good at remembering to pamper himself with the expensive lotion they give him. Takes too much bloody work, besides, as reaching all the spots makes the other spots on his chest and arms hurt, and then he starts sneezing, and then it's all gone straight to hell. 

But this stuff, well, this isn't too bad, because it goes on medicinal-like in the shower, and he can wash it off after a few minutes. Supposed to numb and heal up the area. 

Pulling a face, he squeezes himself a palmful. 

"This mouthwash tastes like piss."

Dom drops the bottle onto his foot. "Can I help you?"

"You can buy mouthwash that doesn't taste like piss," Billy answers.

He fishes the bottle from near the tub's drain and hastily slaps a mound of cream onto his right shoulder. "How long we been here? Three days? We've lived alone in this house for three days and I must warn you that I'm going to off your sorry arse if you whinge about my things again."

Billy's face pops between the wall and the shower curtain. "Oh, but you're such a peach about it..."

"Billy!"

"What?" Billy's face crinkles. "And isn't the point of a wash to stop smelling badly? What is that?"

"For the rash."

"Need a hand?"

Dom strangles his subconscious. "Is this in exchange for me putting up with your whining?"

Billy doesn't answer; just takes the tube from Dom's wet fingers. Dom gives in, offering up his back. With the curtain pushed back water starts to leak out of the shower, but when Billy's hands start kneading the lotion into his shoulders Dom forgets to adjust it.

"It's looking better, though," Billy comments off-handedly, thumbs panning down the top of Dom's spine.

Face throbbing with heat, Dom exhales. "It is. This stuff's very good. Working already."

"Where else?"

Dom sets his subconscious' corpse on fire. "What?"

"Where else do you have the rash? Is the hay fever killing off brain cells, now?"

"Little on my stomach. Look, I got it, it's all right."

"I'm covered in the shit already, just shift over." Billy tugs him to the side a bit and slips a hand between his arm and side, slippery fingers touching the middle of his chest. "Here?"

Dom's pulse begins to trip. What the bloody fuck.

"Um. Higher."

Billy's fingers creep upward, palm pressing flat over Dom's right nipple, fingers lingering over his breastbone, smearing the lotion idly. "That all?"

_Lower._

How many times does one have to kill one's subconscious before it shuts up, anyway?

"Yeah. Thanks, man."

"Any time," Billy says, slipping away from the shower and grabbing a towel before leaving the room.

Sometimes Dom hates Billy for not panicking along with him like any best mate should.

*

They're stranded at a low-end hotel too many miles outside of Queenstown. The hot water tank here is the same size as any one of the tanks back in their homes up north--only this one serves the whole bloody building. The owner, a very sweet woman who puts them and half a dozen crew members up without batting an eyelash, requests that they limit their showers to five minutes, if it wouldn't be too much trouble.

Later in the evening one of the girls has too much to drink and uses about a half hour of shower time before she's discovered and hauled out of the shower by the person that does Dom's makeup. The remaining group figures their loss shower time out of the collective, and several pairs of friends offer to shower together. Billy doesn't announce that he'll make the grand sacrifice of showering with Dom in front of the group, but does make the suggestion to Dom once they're alone as the group breaks up after dinner and watching the dailies.

Dom is exhausted--the weather and the broken down van and a long day shooting has sapped all his energy and he knows he should get cleaned up but he feels shaky.

"You should go ahead, Bill," he says, once they get back to their room, and shrugs off his shirt. He unclips a band or two or four from his arms and sits down on the bed, kicking off his shoes. "Don't think I'm going to make it."

"Terminal?"

"Rare blood disease. Very sad. I had such a promising future."

"Pity."

"Scatter my ashes round your living room?"

"I'll serve you as tea."

"I'd make a delicious tea."

Billy snorts. "Not if you die reeking the way you are now. We're not going to have access to showers until late tomorrow and I've got to smell you until then, so get off your lazy arse and rinse a bit."

Dom stumbles about obviously and fakes a fall into the shower, but Billy just scoots around him casually. 

They manage to perfectly execute the shared nudity in a manly situation drill--below the waist ceases to exist and eyes float purposefully at neck level, avoiding not only looking down but at any possible mirrors. They've seen each other naked before, but there's something about showering together that feels funny, no matter how necessary it is.

The shower space is ridiculously small. Dom waits his turn at the back, bathed in steam, and eventually says, "I really am knackered, though. I mean, not just tired. Feel like I'm dragging a bit. Coffee takes longer to hit every morning. Can't nap because if I fall asleep I can't wake up."

His shoulders covered in soap, Billy twists and glances back at Dom. "Tell Pete. Nah, tell Fran. You're set there. She'll get the medics to put you on something faster than Pete will. 'Brain tumor? Sorry, Dominic. Can't have Merry looking doped up. Right then, take eighty-four, let's get going.'"

Dom's head swims just a bit. He finds himself watching the soap bubbles trickle down Billy's back, finding the rise of--

_Oh, I need sleep._

Billy lifts a hand and pushes some hair of his eyes, biceps flexing under the wet course of water. 

_Sleep. Yes._

Billy turns to drape the washcloth on the ledge there and Dom can see his cock, framed by light brown hair and speckled with water. And the sight of a flaccid, belonging-to-his-best-friend cock shouldn't do what it's doing.

_Sleep. No. That would be a definite...no._

"Right. Get washing. I'll use the shampoo."

Billy brushes around Dom and in particularly predictable fashion Dom's half-formed erection bumps Billy's hip. Billy shows no signs of noticing. As Dom slips under the spray, he begs it silently to go down; hoping that with Billy out of sight it won't be a problem. Wonders when Billy _in_ sight became a catalyst for this problem, anyway.

He thinks and hesitates for so long that Billy has to interrupt, looking ridiculous with a head full of white soapy shampoo that's creeping into his eyes, and Dom would laugh if his cock weren't so heavy. Billy pushes forward under the water and Dom steps away so fast that he almost trips over his own feet. After steadying Dom with a quick pull, Billy laughs.

"You're off tonight, no lie there," Billy says with one last snicker, before tilting his head under the water.

Dom stands there as they share the showerhead, one hand draped ineffectually over himself, watching the water and soap play kiss-chase down Billy's neck. Wonders if this would be such a bad way to go, if indeed he was going to die any moment from the sheer embarrassment of the situation.

But they finish. Billy slips out, grabs a towel and a pair of pants, and Dom follows suit a couple minutes later. 

He has a quick wank after Billy falls asleep.

Sometimes Dom loves Billy for not panicking along with him like any best mate would.

*

Dom's socks are frozen. He updates Things That Would Be Quite Unpleasant and then complains to Billy (a predictable pair of events). Billy's nose is apple-red from the cold and he looks sloppy and silly in a set of mismatched snow gear that Dom catalogues: a plaid-patterned hat, a purple set of gloves, a yellow scarf, and a shiny metallic-blue set of snow goggles.

"Want to go, then?" Billy replies.

They've both hit tilt and Billy knows it. So even though he pretends to fuss he packs up the snowboards for all five of them and offers to drive. Dom sleeps for most of the ride and wakes up when his body becomes aware of the sudden lack of car rumble beneath it. He squints at Billy.

"We home?" he mumbles, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Yeah." Billy stretches a little.

"Why we still sitting in the car?"

"Mm? Oh. Dunno. Feel lazy."

"You know what I feel?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Because I'm hypothermic. And I blame you."

Billy laughs. "Come on, then."

"Yes, Mum," Dom says, smiling winningly.

In the hallway outside his bathroom, Dom strips off layers of damp clothing. "I'm going to use the shower." He hops on one foot, getting his last sock off. "Put some tea on?" Feeling more in control of his joints he runs the tap hot and gets under it. The shock of heat sluices over his body, creating a heavy tingle.

The longer he keeps his eyes closed the more important the sound of the water becomes, and the less connected he feels to the room. He curls a hand around the shaft of his cock and lifts it, itching himself a little and then just leaving his hand there. After a moment he smoothes the water over himself and feels the beginnings of blood pooling. Mechanically he finds the soap and slicks his hand. Shuddering, he squeezes a soapy fist down his cock. Encouraging it, he shifts farther into the shower and closer to the water.

It's not so much that he thinks of Billy when he does this; it's more often than not what he imagines the things his mental (and not very heterosexual) version of Billy would do to him if he asked. He imagines the pressure and the tightness and the wetness that would come along with all the things he craves. He imagines his legs in the air and his ass off the bed, he imagines being fucked so hard all he can feel is the bed shaking and thighs slapping the backs of his own, and he imagines coming so many times he can't see for ten seconds afterward. This is all at once Billy and not-Billy, and it doesn't matter either way because it gets Dom off.

He's lost track of the number of times he's been in this very place, thinking so feverishly that he almost forgets what he's doing. So he doesn't hear the knock on the door the first or second time it comes, and he doesn't even hear the door open. He notices finally at the last second only because he feels the temperature change as the steam is rapidly sucked out of the room.

Billy lingers in the doorway, practically shouting. "I said! Do you want mint or lemon?" And then notices Dom through the significant gap in the shower curtain. Turns a very enchanting shade of purple. "Oh. Oh, sorry." And doesn't move.

Soap trickles down Dom's thighs to tickle his knees and he is just as frozen as Billy, fist around the head of his cock, back pinned against the tiles. 

_Well, that solves that bit of mystery_ , Dom thinks, watching Billy watch. He knows distraction when he sees it. And though the complicated tangle this creates is something he cannot so easily categorize, he's more than willing to not give a fuck all about it for however long it takes to get his erection taken care of.

Just when he's worked up something to say, Billy has excused himself, hastily shutting the door. 

There can't be any definitive conclusion as to what just happened and Dom comes to understand this in the days that follow, with Billy treating him no different than before. This comfortable lapsing back is seventy-percent relief and thirty-percent frustration (and for the sake of their lives together Dom is more than willing to ignore the latter). 

Sometimes Dom loves Billy for not panicking along with him like any best mate would.

*

Dom sees Elijah to his car before heading back inside to find Billy. He stops along the way, plucking beer cans and several discarded and greasy pizza boxes off the furniture. Once this trash is tucked away he folds up the Playstation into its cabinet, pushing the small wooden doors until they click into place.

And he thinks: _It's not like it's obvious. Sure, Elijah looks at us funny sometimes, but how glaring could it be? It's nothing any one of them expects._

This is a popular train of thought as of late. He enjoys torturing himself with it, wrapping it around his brain until the throbbing organ threatens to explode under the pressure. Wonders what he's doing wrong--or what he's missed--that's landed him in the boat of having no reason to be unhappy with his and Billy's friendship, but carrying instead invisible and elusive reasons why he's not _happy_ with it, either.

Dom hates this kind of thought. It always seems to happen when the day's over and Billy's either going home or staying over (either way it's lonely at night when Billy's asleep and Dom can't shake the feeling that time is being wasted). The end of the day brings reflection, he guesses. 

He strolls past the bathroom partly to hear Billy singing in the shower and partly to get to the bedroom and inevitably finds himself stalled in front of the bathroom door, listening. No singing tonight. He listens to the silence so hard that he starts to hear the roar in his ears. Stepping back, he glances down the hall, catching sight of the front rooms and the cast-off glow of distant lamps. The noise of the shower hisses and suddenly everything seems like small parts of something much bigger.

_Why're we doing this?_

He can charge in, all erotic film like, and just tackle Billy into the tub. He can let his body go through the motion. It would be very simple; and if Billy balked, well, all they'd have to do is deal with a bit of embarrassment. But he doesn't think so. He blames the way Billy had looked at him that evening weeks ago, but mostly he blames their circumstances, and if they're going to go mad because of all this crap, they might as well enjoy some part it. 

Of course all he ends up doing is opening the door quietly. Is suddenly confronted by Billy right there on the other side, and they both start to talk at the same time.

"Oh, fuck, sorry, I just--"

"Dom, I was going to--"

Billy's chest rises and falls unevenly. They look at each other and something passes between them.

"Ah," Dom says, and then promptly closes his stupid mouth.

Billy takes a step back, a prepared polite smile twisting his bow-shaped mouth. And Dom takes an anxious step forward to compensate and then leans forward and kisses Billy's lips. A hot rush of breath floods the seam of Dom's mouth, but the stillness in Billy's shoulders makes him nervous. 

"Please," Billy says, damp hands lightly brushing Dom's chest just before kissing him back--a soft and slanted parting of lips with the promise of damp heat waiting to be tasted. 

Dom steers them back toward the shower and they nearly kill themselves over the rim of the tub but barely notice. Billy's towel slips off and is soaked at their feet but Billy's too busy filling Dom's mouth with his tongue to notice. The warmth of the room returns tenfold. Dom is fully clothed and soaking wet and hard, grinding their bodies together. And then the clothes join the towel piece by piece, Billy's clumsy, wet fingers shoving and peeling them away from Dom's skin.

Dom ducks his face against Billy's neck and takes Billy's cock in hand before he can think about doing it, stroking the blood-flushed shaft until it pushes of its own accord into his fingers. The urge (this cock needs to be slippery) spills over and floods his throat and he sinks to his knees and drops a kiss just below Billy's navel before tracing the vein along the side of Billy's cock with the tip of his tongue, briefly sucking the head, and finally taking it into his mouth. Billy's fingers jerk and settle on Dom's ears, hips straining into the heat.

Billy tugs at his ears and Dom floats back up, his mouth brushing skin the whole way back to Billy's lips. Arms around his neck and a body much more pliant and _god this is kissing_ , back and forth like they have something to prove, teeth skimming tongue and lip disjointedly. Billy's hand finds Dom's cock and brings it up alongside his own, and somehow there's soap there and it's fucking slippery like velvet between their bellies, and Dom lifts Billy's leg a little and fits their pelvises together. They thrust lightly into each other and Dom pushes them between his fingers as well, working the sides and the tips until he can feel their dribbling combine with the soapy coating.

Foreheads together and mouths panting and parted and flushed near to touching, hands everywhere, one on the wall and one on Dom's hip and one on Billy's lower back and one on the wall and another (doesn't that make five?) and a foot on the edge and a foot on the opposite edge and (we've grown extra limbs?) and Billy is _rocking his hips_ and the underside of their cocks are hitting such a sweet friction that Dom can't stop panting, can't stop licking and biting at Billy's mouth. Hips stop and Dom's hand flies, working them both frantically. And then again, Billy's leg around his hip, Dom biting his shoulder, squeezing their bodies together so hard that other parts start to hurt and cramp and _it doesn't matter_ because they're going to come, going to come fucking hard, all over each other, oh _fuck me_...

Dom slams Billy into the wall when it rips up his spine and empties outward in hot waves of relief and Billy whimpers just a little and helps double the mess, spurting thickly over Dom's fingers and splattering Dom's belly.

They do nothing but breathe for a full minute.

"Billy," Dom mutters, when he remembers English, and lifts his head just a little. Kisses Billy's bottom lip. Top lip. Between. Tongue dips in. "Billy." Reclaims tongue from between Billy's lips. Kisses just above his top lip. "Billy. Oh, fuck. Gonna fall over."

"No you're not," Billy says, voice raspy and full of silent laughter, still a little winded.

"Don't you ever worry, Boyd?" 

Billy just grins and brings Dom's hips against his, pulling them both under the water.

Sometimes Dom loves Billy for not panicking along with him like any best mate would; and sometimes Billy loves him back.


End file.
